Snoofing my way though Twixtmas

This week’s word is a suggestion from my sister who spotted it, appropriately enough, on a train. Snoofing is a verb meaning to feign a dormant state in order to avoid interaction with other passengers on public transport, especially if that means relinquishing your seat to someone in need.

Snoofing is a recently invented word whose origin appears to be from spoofing (pretending) and snooze. It doesn’t appear in any of the mainstream dictionaries but as a former train commuter (who only rarely had a seat during her pregnancies) I can assure readers that snoofing is a real and deserves a verb, if only so we can shame those who engage in it.

Spoof (a hoax, trick or deception) has a longer history. It comes from spoof in 1884, a card game involving trickery, bluffing, and nonsense invented by British comedian and music hall entertainer Arthur Roberts (1852-1933). The idea of a spoof as being a skit or parody of a play or movie entered English around 1914. Arthur started his career busking in London’ Covent Garden and once caused a supper room to lose its license due to performing one of his more saucy songs there.

There is also a coin game called spoof and a world championship. Details and rules of play are here.

I haven’t been able to find the rules of spoof as invented by Arthur Roberts because it would be a fun game to play during twixtmas – the days between St. Stephen’s Day and New Year’s Eve. Instead I shall have to deploy my snoofing techniques to avoid washing the dishes.